NAU seeks Senate’s intervention on take-off grant

The Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka is seeking the Senate’s help to effect the release of its take-off grant from the Federal Government.

When the Senate Committee on Education visited the institution penultimate week, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Boniface Egboka, told them that the university, established by the Anambra State government in 1991 and taken over by the federal government in 1992 when General Ibrahim Babangida was military head of state, has not received the N500million grant alleged to have been diverted to the University of Abuja.

Also, Egboka expressed concerns to the committee, led by Senator Uche Chukwumerije that the yearly allocation from the federal government for overhead and capital development has been dwindling since 2008.

He said in 2008, the budgetary allocation to the school by the federal government was N584,048,971 while the amount released was 354,048,971, about 60.62 per cent of the total. In 2009, the N795,639, 456 budgeted was released in full – the only time it happened. However, since then, he said the allocation has continued to drop. For this year, only N192,036,842.60 of the N429,342,466 million allocated was released. Nevertheless, 2011 was the worst year for the university in terms of allocation as the institution got only N262,861,005 from the government, out of which only N193,348,071 was released.

However despite these handicaps, Egboka told the committee the university has made judicious use of its internally-generated revenue.

In 2003, the university administration with the full backing of the governing council and the parents and teachers forum, agreed on various levels of development or endowment levies to help the institution.

These levies, added to the postgraduate and diploma fees, form the sources of fund which enabled the institution put up structures and move the school to the permanent site where today, it has blossomed to a giant.

Recently, the Education Minister, Prof Ruqayyat Ahmed Rufa’i inaugurated some of the projects completed with IGR, including: a gigantic water project (Phase I), and the Dr Alex Ekwueme Centre for Multi-Disciplinary research building.

Responding to the VC’s plea and the level of infrastructural development in the university, the Committee pledged to make sure the take-off grant and special trust fund were released to the institution.

Chukwumerije said: “I moved around and saw what sound leadership can do; what a united people can do. And I moved around and saw what prudent management of whatever you have can do. And that prudent management starts with a very clear vision of what you want; that you want to lead the society from a certain stage of development to a higher stage of development.

“Not just the quantum of money collected or what is being done with it but the management of that money. This is the first institution that I have been to that, adopted a collective, approach to management of university affairs especially money”.

“On our part whatever we can do to help the university we will do. The issue of one, your take-off grant, if I can get from the VC any evidence of others who have suffered similar handicap but have been able to retrieve their take-off grant, that will give me a very good precedent I will use to convince the authorities about your own.”